- Updates from the women’s final at Melbourne Park
- Home favourite Barty brushes off weight of history
- Collins’ rise from obscurity to a grand slam final
- And you can contact John by email or on Twitter
And Emma Kemp profiled Ash Barty, on whose shoulders such pressure now lies.
Being 2022, it is now 44 years since Christine O’Neil did, on grass, at Kooyong. Ash Barty, of course, knows all of this. Her results of the past three years here read: quarter-final, semi-final, quarter-final. She too would have felt the infamous squeeze in her chest of an expectant country behind her.
And while many of the high-ranked women have ferocious groundstrokes, what makes Collins unique is that she is just as adept in the forecourt, allowing her to finish off points in swift fashion. Yet part of the reason why Collins’ game has taken longer to mature into the top-tier player she has become is that her on-court decision-making was lacking. But she has now married her all-court abandon with a newfound strategic acumen and increased mental focus, rapidly developing into one of the most dangerous players on tour. (On the men’s side Denis Shapovalov is undergoing a similar transformation.) Collins’ full arsenal of shots was on view during her comprehensive beating of the slam champion Swiatek on Thursday. It was perhaps the finest win of her career.
Continue reading...from The Guardian https://bit.ly/3INH2GF
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